Kuhn is a recent CultureWorks graduate who asks questions, and lots of them; he takes routes not often traveled; and his smiles are large and often.

Yes, there is plenty to be learned from this 23-year-old from Xi’an, China.

At the beginning, he applied for his Master’s degree in three countries – Great Britain, Australia and Canada. He is aiming for a mechanical engineering degree. Australia was dropped early, and Great Britain was not far behind.

“The Australian school gave me an offer in one day. And they even used Chinese people to show me their welcome. I say why are you giving me it so soon? Do you ever consider about me? British gave me an offer in one week. So soon!”

Next task was choosing which school in Canada. Western, McGill and Toronto were on his list.

Why Kuhn chose CultureWorks to be his ESL school

Kuhn ultimately chose Western. Kuhn’s cousin was at CultureWorks before him, allowing him to know about the ESL program before coming to Canada.

“He told me CultureWorks is better than other language schools, because the teacher will provide more good designed courses for you, not just follow the books. So I think it’s better. And mostly CultureWorks classes are not bigger classes as other ESL schools. Small class size so you can talk to teacher more often.

Making friends from all over the world

Kuhn tested into CultureWorks’ Level 5, and his route to graduating from there was not traditional for a Chinese student. Instead of spending most of his time with students from his own country, he did just the opposite.

“If you want to stay by yourself, why go to Canada? You can enjoy your room in China. I told (any fellow students) I meet, but most of them don’t care. They just want to stay by themselves.”

Kuhn said his goal in coming to Canada was making new friends at ESL school. He did just that in a large way.

“People are very high social animals. I am social. My goal in going to Canada is make friends, international friends. So now I have Congo friends, Arabic friends, Brazilian friends, Canadian friends, Japanese friends, Vietnamese friends, Korean friends.”

This all helped Kuhn avoid any problems about being so far from home. Loneliness was never a problem and CultureWorks helped him with that as well.

Now, six months later, he is on the move to Western. But not before he left a large, positive mark at CultureWorks.

“Actually, I never feared being lonely in London because Canada has lots of activities here. If you want to participate, there are many places you can do that, but sometime students don’t want to play. They just want to stay in their house playing games. That is why they have loneliness.

“For me, it doesn’t matter because in my free time, my home stay will take me to apple picking, go to Niagara Falls, buy something in downtown so I think the half year is very quick for me. I never feel lonely.”

Kuhn’s teachers are impressed with his positive and outgoing attitude

CultureWorks teachers were also impressed with the graduating Kuhn. Paul Findlay and Joel Melton were just two of the many on that list.

“He is a very inclusive student, works well with everyone. Outgoing, he has become more so as he has become more comfortable here at CW. He always speaks English in class, has made the effort to actually become a part of society here!” Paul said.

“Kuhn is a very independent worker, however, he loves to connect to others; both from his native China, but also with students and teachers from other countries.

He always carried a positive attitude and curious nature which lead him through his new city of residence,” Joel said.

Kuhn shares what he loves most about our English as a second language school

At the end of a 25-minute chat, Kuhn was asked if he had anything else to say before he moved on to his next stop in life.

“I want to say something for next class of classmates. That Canada is a very peaceful and beautiful country. It will give you a very impressive experience of your life.

“I think it’s very good. In my personal thoughts before, I think the language schools are very small, without any of their own culture. But CultureWorks is different. CultureWorks has their own blog, they have many of their own many activities, many festivals.

Kuhn said this all leads to something, frankly, that was soul searching.

“So I think they have their own culture. That is why CultureWorks has their soul. I think for me the soul of the culture is very important for the company.”

“It’s like the inner context. It’s not like just teaching, just like giving you a diploma and like educational product of students. That is not the soul. Soul is made after you study here. You can get lots of different things. They can give you some fresh ideas. They can give you gifts, like special CultureWorks gifts to you and you can hold it for the rest of your life.”

And finally, from an exceptional student ….

“From CultureWorks, the hugest thing I learned was to have critical thinking about everything.”